Well, it wouldn't be a Simon Ashdown episode if it didn't feature, in some way, the Brannings. The Brannings and their satellites have spread over the Square like a slimey cancer, insinuating themselves into every aspect of Walford life. In present circumstances, Sharon was brought back only to interact with and, thereby, validate the Brannings as worthy of Walford. If my suspicions are correct, they're about to go global, becoming multi-racial and multi-national.
I'm constantly at a loss to wonder why TPTB are foisting on their viewers a family, many of whose members are immensely unpopular. The only ones worth watching are Max, Abi and Carol - and even Carol's hard going when she gets a downer on life.
Anyway, now we know that Shaggerman is one of the Branning brothers. And I take this opportunity to calll bullshit on this storyline in its entirety - as a tissue of lies and the worst sort of condescending deception played out upon the viewing public who pay a licence fee for the privilege of watching this programme and, therefore, pay the over-inflated salaries of the people who write this mess, those who produce it and those who give it life.
Never for one moment did I ever believe that the people writing this garbage didn't know who Shaggerman was. Never for one moment did I believe the actors participating didn't know. The ludicrous PR story put out and about was insulting to the intelligence of the discerning viewer, because these people realise that actors create an illusion and writers create a fiction, which - sometimes - can be euphemistic for a lie.
They pushed the lie about the secret Shagger, and the lower end of the intellect spectrum to whom EastEnders caters nowadays - the cheerleading brigade who'll quite happily accept any old retcon if it means Sharon can be Cora's daughter, the functionally illiterate tweenies who populate Facebook and Twitter, the pathetic old crones trolling themselves into irrelevance ...
(Shhh ... Vald)
And their target audience lapped it up.
EastEnders, being EastEnders and always being one to go OTT with something, now stretches it out. Tonight we find out that Shaggerman is, indeed, one of the Brannings - when there was always a 60% possibility of it being so all along. That's not rocket science - the Brannings are involved in everything - Sharon's return, rescuing Ian, soothing Janine's insecurities, fucking Kat ... you name it, they're there.
So now the actual identification of Shaggerman is drawn out some more, with the reveal coming at Christmas. How do I know? Again, it's not rocket science. The Brannings are set to dominate Christmas this year; Shane Richie has said that he and Jessie Wallace feature heavily. Do the maths. Simples. Shaggerman's identity will be one of many reveals.
And it's Derek.
Why? Again, simples ...
- Max is worried at the moment, about a woman , who's not Tanya. But that woman isn't Kat either. Max turned down Roxy Mitchell, a woman who's rough but miles above Kat in the personal hygiene and sexual cleanliness brigade. Max has got another woman, all right; but she's nothing to do with Walford yet.
- Jack's in l-u-u-u-r-ve ... with Sharon. Sharon ca 2012 seems to exist in the minds of people who should know better (yes, that's you,
Louise BerridgeLorraine Newman) for sexually sustaining Jack and for warming Jack's bed. In doing so, TPTB have just committed a hattrick of fucking up iconic female characters ... Kat, Bianca and now Sharon. - Derek is a greaser gangsta whose tastes run to blowse and bling in women. If he'd been around in the late 1950s, he'd probably have been attracted to a young Pat Harris. Derek's also been in prison for fourteen years, deprived of female companionship. Max knocked back Roxy, but Derek slept with Rainie Cross, a woman who's slightly beneath Kat in sexual roughness aspects. Kat, for Derek, would be upmarket. Besides, he listens to Sinatra at the breakfast table, and he's an old-fashioned romantic. And finally, Derek is the new Ben ... all roads lead to him, until at last, one of those roads will lead out of Walford - probably in a box.
One of those three is porking the landlord's wife, and I know it's Derek - the way he shouted imperiously after Alfie, referring to him as "Landlord," and the way he faux-solicitously asked "poor Katshit" if her husband had been giving her a hard time. Only a mofo porker would know why that question needed asking.
Performances of the night, without a doubt, go to the inestimable Charlie Brooks and Shane Richie, with honourable mention to Steve John Shepherd.
I know Richie, as Alfie Moon, can be annoying; but - like Perry Fenwick - he's an actor, who, when asked, steps up to the plate with style and panache. Along with Brooks, he was mesmerising tonight.
First, as well, let me call out the shallow end of all the fora commentators, especially on Digital Spy and Walford Web kindergarten: Alfie showed, tonight, that he was anything but a doormat. And before anyone whines that "Alfie took her back," he didn't. She came back into the Vic, by the front door, and she forced the issue about going away - running away. Remember his last words to Kat were that he wouldn't promise - wouldn't promise - that this would remedy the situation. More than anything tonight, we saw definitely that all the trust Alfie had for Kat has gone. The love he had for her has changed now too.
What people need to remember is that Alfie has a dark side, and also that Alfie knows Kat better than she knows herself; and he knows that she's lying to him about Shaggerman - he knows that whoever it is, he knows him; and he knows Kat's protecting Shaggerman for a purpose. You know, I've no doubt the skanking bitch still does love Alfie, but she wants her cake and she wants to eat it too. She wants a nice, peaceful life with Alfie, but when she gets bored, she wants to be able to skank about and fuck whoever.
Bullshit to her developing "feelings" for Shaggerman. The only "feelings" she experienced were gropes beneath the covers. And that skank was too ready to fuck Shaggerman the first time he came into the Vic kitchen. Whatever way she "loves" Alfie, she was scared shitless of him finding out, especially after she tried to take the moral ground from Roxy over Roxy's feelings for Alfie (which were more than a grope), only to have Roxy hand her arse back to her.
I was glad Alfie threw her sorry ass out tonight, as well as calling time on her pathetic "I'm-a-dirty-girl" routine. Kudos to Ashdown, at least, for including the line about Alfie being bored with hearing that excuse again and again - but even through all of this, Kat never once accepted responsibility for what she'd done - even when she said she loved Shaggerman, she still didn't want to leave Alfie, which didn't make sense in the least, except to enhance her narcissism. We've spent months listening to her moan to Jean about Alfie not loving her, listening, actually, to Jean and Mo, and even people like Denise, Tanya and Kim, tell her how bloody lucky she was to have Alfie.
Her apologies rang hollow tonight, because she genuinely isn't sorry for hurting Alfie - and make no mistake, she knows how much he's hurting. She's just awfully sorry she got caught. Boo-hoo ... poor Kat. Ever the victim. But, hey, she'll whisk Alfie away for a fortnight, still protecting Shaggerman - if she even did speak to him on the phone - how convenient that all three of the bruvs' phones rang at once - and destroying the phone because Alfie could have seen whom she called on last call. She'll whisk him away and think that a fuck will bring him around. She's wrong.
This isn't over; Alfie hasn't taken her back; he hasn't forgiven her - did you hear him say that? I didn't. He damned well knows that Shaggerman is someone he knows, and that Kat's protecting him; but he'll allow her to think that she's covered her tracks in this one.
Christmas is a-coming and the toad is getting fat. Time enough for a big reveal, when Alfie finds out Derek has been porking Kat and that Kat was lying all along to Alfie. Still time for a blustery, rainy and dark Christmas Day with Kat being thrown in the gutter - fittingly, on her wedding anniversary.
Bye bye, Kathleen.
How I love and how I'll miss Janine; and how I hated Michael Moon most of tonight, because he was playing the cruelest of mind games on her. Yes, Michael was right when he said that they were both alike in many ways - the daddy issues, the outsider issues, the inherent belief that they were bad and loners, the trust issues which occur and scar when someone whom they should have been able to trust lets them down.
Michael became the second man in Janine's life to admit he was attracted to her because, basically, he thought she was mental and she "interested" hiim. Ryan told her the same thing - that he was attracted to her because he thought she was a little bit mental, but then she weirded out on him, which offended him. Well, maybe Janine was offended by the fact that he was lying through his teeth to her the whole time he was fucking around and lying with Stacey Slater?
I think Janine saw that happening again, this time with Michael; and that line cut deep. I also think she had a hard deja-vu when she saw Kat leaving the Shaggerpad earlier this week and thought she'd been having an affair with Michael.
Janine is hormonal, having recently given birth. She's also suffering from PND and had to deal with a sick child throughout that period. She has no support with her child - Pat is dead, Carol and Bianca are away. Diane and Clare live in other countries. She was a welter of tension and stress leading up to her wedding, being bullied and taunted by Cora and having Jean tell her that her baby would be unloved. And Michael's behaviour has been less than salubrious.
He's become secretive, he tells lies, he manipulates the situation to denigrate her, and he's played and preyed on her self-esteem. Janine had every right to suspect him of being after her for her money. Remember when he first arrived on the Square and she was penniless? She made a play for him in the Vic and he knocked her back.
The only time he began to respond to her advances was when she'd inherited her millions. And I am totally Team Janine re the pre-nup, especially with a child on the way. Plain truth was Michael's ego was bruised when Janine took over arrangements for the wedding; he simply couldn't cope with being married or romantically involved with a wealthy and powerful woman.
As well, Janine is still mouring Pat. The first thing she told Pat when Pat was dying was that she was pregnant by a man she didn't trust. She could so do with Pat's steadying hand now, and Pat would soon put paid to Michael's attitude.
Notice, too, how, when Janine was confronting Michael tonight, he deftly manoeuvred the situation to make it look as though he was the victim; and when she found out that Scarlett was missing from her room, naturally, her first thought was that Michael had taken the baby and the money and left. Her concern was totally for the child, but Michael played mind games with her until she, herself, believed what he was saying - that she was a toxic mother who would only be bad for her child. What sort of man would say that?
As was, he only succeeded in achieving what he didn't want.
The scene between the two "poor victims" was the only contrivance in the show - hence the ambiguous whine from Kat that "Alfie knows." Deliberately inserted to make the public think she'd been boning Michael, when everyone knew better. She was fishing for sympathy and got none; instead, Michael told her to beg forgiveness on her hands and knees to Alfie for what she'd done. Yet another person, telling her that Alfie loved her;' and she finally believed that from Michael ... but know what?
Michael was late in that advice. Too late. Too late in his advice for Kat and too late in following it for himself. Because Kat returned to a different Alfie, one who may tolerate her presence, but who doesn't trust her and will watch her like a witch to catch her in her deception. He's waiting and biding his time. The Sicilians have a saying: Revenge is a dish that's best eaten cold.
If you watch the episode again, hark the coldness in Alfie's eyes in his last scene.
And Michael returns home to find he's committed his worst con yet - conning his wife and the mother of his child into believing she's no good as a wife or a mother, that she's so bad that her child is best left with the psychopath of a father - someone who loves her, but is afraid to get close to her.
We'll see Janine exact her revenge on Michael in the next few weeks, off-screen; but tonight she left in a welter of tears. She's a long-termer, Janine, the Crown Princess of Walford. I hope she returns, solbent, powerful, confident. I hope she gets her daughter back, and I hope she kicks CadaverMan's skinny arse so far away from Walford we never see him again.
Good episode.
Now let's start thinning out the cancer known as Branning.
No comments:
Post a Comment